Coast Guard death tied to smuggling at sea

Updated 11:02 am, Monday, December 2, 2013

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne was killed when the suspected smugglers he was pursuing rammed their boat into his craft early Sunday.

Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne was killed when the suspected smugglers he was pursuing rammed their boat into his craft early Sunday.

Photo: Lt. Stewart Sibert, Associated Press

Coast Guard death tied to smuggling at sea

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San Diego --

The killing of a U.S. Coast Guardsman whose crew was chasing a vessel suspected of being laden with drugs appears to be the latest example of how smugglers are venturing farther north in a game of cat-and-mouse along the California coast.

Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne, 34, died Sunday after he was struck in the head by the suspect vessel near the Channel Islands, west of Los Angeles and about 180 miles northwest of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The Halibut, an 87-foot patrol cutter based in Marina del Rey (Los Angeles County), was dispatched after a Coast Guard C-130 plane spotted the 30-foot "panga" vessel traveling without lights near Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the eight Channel Islands, according to a criminal complaint.

The cutter contains a 21-foot-long rigid-hull inflatable boat that the Coast Guard routinely uses on missions that require more speed and agility than the cutter can deliver.

As Horne and his team came within about 20 yards of the suspects, they gunned their engine, knocking Horne and Brandon Langdon into the water, according to the complaint. Langdon was treated for a knee injury, and two other crew members aboard the inflatable boat were unharmed in the collision at 1:20 a.m.

Coast Guard crews followed the suspects by air and sea for nearly four hours until the vessel's engine died 20 miles north of the Mexican border, according to the complaint. An officer used pepper spray on both suspects.

In growing numbers, smugglers are turning to California seas to bring people and drugs to the United States from Mexico. The number of Border Patrol agents on land has doubled in the past eight years and hundreds of miles of fences and other barriers have been erected, driving smugglers to the ocean.

U.S. authorities spotted 210 suspected smuggling vessels on California shores during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up 15 percent from 183 incidents the previous year and more than quadruple the 45 incidents in 2008.

More than half the sightings are still in San Diego County, bordering Mexico, but boats are turning up as far north as San Luis Obispo County on California's Central Coast. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, there were 14 incidents in Los Angeles County last year, seven in Ventura County and 11 in Santa Barbara County.

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